Technos' Double Dragon has to rank as one of the most seminal arcade games of all time. While it wasn't the first side-scrolling fighter by a long way, it laid down the foundations of the genre and inspired countless clones and even a (terrible) Hollywood movie. It also played a significant role in the cult film The Wizard.
The brainchild of Yoshihisa Kishimoto, Double Dragon was the spiritual successor to Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, known in the west as Renegade. An instant hit in arcades and ported to practically every home system at the time, Double Dragon was followed by numerous sequels and remakes.
If you're keen to know more about the series and have a spare 30 minutes, then Daniel Ibbertson has put together another of his excellent videos which goes into an incredible level of detail regarding not only the original release but the games which inspired it and the developers involved.
Give it a watch and let us know what your favourite Double Dragon title is by posting a comment.
Comments (28)
Oh that movie was so bad. This is coming from someone that liked Mario Bros and Street Fighter. At least they were entertaining. Double Dragon movie? Just painful.
EDIT: I went and binged watched the old Double Dragon cartoon in honor of this. I would have pulled out the corresponding game but my SNES is in storage.
That movie is so bad that it's good! I keep it along side "Street Fighter" and "Super Mario Bros" because its a trilogy of guilty pleasures that just keeps on giving.
I highly recommend this guys channel, I've been subbed to him for a while and his videos are always high quality and very informative.
I remember playing through Double Dragon on the Master System. We spent ages trying to get to the end and then we finally beat it and it pretty much just said 'And they lived happily ever after. The end'. Even by 1980s standards we were pretty disappointed with the ending.
Huge thanks for promoting the video @Nintendolife. Highly appreciated!
Very happy to see my latest video getting some good loving as I spent AAAAAAGES putting it together lol
Will definitely take a peak at the video. DD was a big part of my gaming experience as a child. And while the movie is utter garbage, at least the cartoon was pretty darn cool (at least I remember it being cool).
I remember playing it and watching the movie/cartoon.
DD2: the Revenge is still one of my all-time favorite beat-em-ups next to RCR. Speaking of which, I love the "Dragon Twins" cameos in River City Ransom and the new Tokyo Rumble! The Double Dragon music gets me so nostalgiac and pumped!
I've seen that video before but it deserved another watch. Of course, I'm old enough to have spent all my quarters on the original Double Dragon in the arcade back in the day.
Too bad that Double Dragon game for NEO GEO isn't on the Wii Virtual Console.
And yeah - Double Dragon NEON is awesome!!!
Super double dragon is THE best side scrolling beat em up ever.
@Damo Props for spotlighting Daniel. He deserves more subscribers.
DD is amazing loved playing it in the arcades and on consoles as a kid.
@bezerker99 I love Double Dragon Neon. Yeah it's cheesy as heck but it has become one of my favorite in the series.
Please excuse my ignorance, but is the NES pronounced NEZ in Britain?
Love me some Neon! Jake Kaufman does the soundtrack for that as well as Shantae and they sound AWESOME!!
On the down side, I couldn't really get myself attached to Super Double Dragon because I felt that it was so slow. Maybe because I was too hopped up on SFII: Turbo...
ahhhhh thanks @faint
@Tasuki I agree. The cheese is great! I'm just one silver trophy away from achieving Platinum in DD Neon. Only thing I can't do by myself is to finish each stage cooperatively on Double Dragon difficulty w/ friendly fire enabled. I don't know too many people who play video games in real life and so this one trophy eludes me. I got my neighbor once to play but he sucks and couldn't survive the game on that difficulty mode. I tried to do it myself and almost did it.....
@bezerker99 Do you have it on PS3 or 360?
@Tasuki PS3
@bezerker99 Dang I would try and help but I have it on 360.
Street Fighter movie has some great moments, even if it's a bad movie. It's a good-bad movie, a film category I tend to enjoy. Raul Julia did an awesome job but I have to wonder how they got him to do the role in the first place.
@NESlover85 - I always called it NEZ, yeah. Maybe we didn't have television adverts calling it N.E.S. (so we didn't know), but I seem to remember most people calling it NEZ. When I heard a journalist on Gamesmaster calling the "SNEZ" the "S.N.E.S." I was quite surprised.
@djslope - Oh man, I'm hooked on your videos now. I like how they capture how the hobby felt at the time. I'm guessing you're almost exactly the same age as me (38)? There's no doubt about it, there was just something magical about following Sega back then.
@MetalKing85 Massive thanks buddy I am 32 so saw everything through fanboy eyes at the time hahaha.
Glad you are enjoying my videos, plenty more to come including a very gory franchise for Halloween #WatchThisSpace
@Tasuki Thanks anyways! (So, this particular trophy can be gotten from having the second player be an online player? This I wasn't aware of. I might know someone online who has the game....thanks again!)
@bezerker99 I believe so. I never got it myself but a friend of mine did on 360 and he only plays online. Unless PS3 and 360 work different.
I will always favor the NES version of the original game, but I also like the Battletoads crossover, and "Super Double Dragon" for the SNES. The movie was a guilty pleasure of mine; I actually liked the basic concept in spite of all the camp. I'd love to see a more serious film done, based on the property; they could do a kickass Shadow Boss with today's effects.
@MetalKingShield Actually, here in the States it was more common to just call them the "Nintendo" and "Super Nintendo" back then. The N-E-S and S-N-E-S names are the more modern terms to keep from confusing them with the other Nintendo systems.
But yeah, I too found it weird that this guy was pronouncing the acronyms that way. It gets too confusing to determine singular and plural forms, and the "Nez" sounds too much like the main character in "Earthbound."
Hmm, I had no idea the Double Dragon series was a spin-off of the Kunio-kun series or that so many later Double Dragon games have been made.
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